


four times Gansey visits Adam at Harvard

by simonsjumpers



Category: Call Down the Hawk - Maggie Stiefvater, Dreamer Trilogy - Maggie Stiefvater, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, M/M, declan lynch sad boy hours, gansey be racking up those air miles, gansey pov, pynch - Freeform, set some time after CDTH, this is not adam/gansey despite appearances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23931139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simonsjumpers/pseuds/simonsjumpers
Summary: “You saw someone on St Mark's, didn't you? One of us dies." Adam's hands were shaking.Gansey took a breath, and then another, “Declan.”orthe four times Gansey visits Adam at Harvard
Relationships: Jordan/Declan Lynch, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 9
Kudos: 89





	1. december

**Author's Note:**

> not edited, yikes, apologies, but it's a global pandemic and I don't have the energy

_i_

* * *

It had occurred to Gansey about one month into his third chance at life why exactly he’d surrounded himself with the people he had. He’d been handing out takeout orders to his friends around the table of Monmouth when the penny dropped for him.

Ronan. Adam. Blue. Henry.

Why them?

Well, because the surprised him. They never stopped surprising them.

He recalled the first time he met them all. Or in Henry’s case, the first proper conversation they had had within the depths of Borden House. The thing that made them stick was that they weren’t what he had expected them to be. So Gansey had, in his Gansey-like ways, been drawn to them and to look for who they really were.

But Adam Parrish in particular… Gansey would never stop being surprised by him.

Gansey’s three-man trip around the world had been sanctioned by his parents on the condition that he return for two weeks for the holidays. So he found himself in late December saying goodbye to Blue and Henry in Ecuador and flying into Boston.

The detour to Boston was unknown to his parents who he had told he was flying into D.C. the day after, and the detour was also unknown to Adam Parrish who was no more than ten minutes from the airport.

He supposed he should have told Adam he was coming, but a part of him had been so worried that Adam would tell him not to come and that rejection would have forced him to face up to the fact that perhaps the immortal Henrietta triumvirate was truly over.

So he found himself trudging around the Harvard campus through an inch of snow with Adam’s contact brought up on his phone waiting for the courage to call.

Turns out, he needn’t bother. Adam called him.

Gansey let himself be surprised for one second before answering.

“I suppose the cards told you I was here?”

Adam’s laugh, which Gansey had thought himself undeserving of many a time, echoed down the line.

“No. I can see you.”

Gansey whipped around.

“Look up. Library windows. Second one from… right… no, left.”

There was a vaguely Parrish-shaped figure in the window, waving. Gansey waved back.

“Are you really wearing your boat-shoes? Gansey it’s 28 degrees.”

“I packed light.”

“The coffee shop behind you. I’ll meet you there in five.”

Gansey gave him a salute from the frozen path and put his phone down.

* * *

Ten minutes later, just as Gansey began to feel his toes again, a wrapped-up and pink-nosed stranger slid into the chair opposite.

“Oh–“ Gansey began, but it was just Adam, “ _Oh_.”

“Oh?” Adam replied, familiarly sardonic.

“No, I just… I didn’t recognise you for a moment.”

Adam frowned, “don’t worry. You’ve not been the only one.”

Gansey laughed nervously. He wasn’t usually one to be gripped by strange shyness, in fact he always seemed to default to the opposite – an easy self-assurance that often offended – instead. But this was Adam Parrish. This was a filled-out, relaxed shoulders, cocked-head Parrish. He exuded so much confidence that it rendered Gansey unusually speechless.

“I’ll get the coffees, shall I?”

Gansey nodded and Adam jumped up from the table and over to the counter.

He looked so much more. And a second later, Gansey regretted thinking it, as if the mere thought of it made his old Adam so much less.

But Gansey hung his head and became consumed in the thought that perhaps he’d been this Adam all along, and Gansey had been too wrapped up in the false-promises of a Welsh king or the soft skin behind Blue Sargent’s ear to notice.

Adam re-joined him at the table with two very strong looking black coffees in Harvard branded mugs.

“It’s good to see you, Gansey.”

“And you.”

“Does Lynch know you were coming? He didn’t tell me anything.”

“No. I didn’t tell him. I know he’s busy.”

Gansey had yet to meet Hennessy but from the sporadic information he’d received over text from Ronan and the one time he’d spotted her in the back of a picture in Matthew’s Instagram, he thought busy was probably an understatement.

Adam seemed to raise his eyebrows in agreement.

“He could do with your insight. With all this Bryde stuff.”

Gansey nodded, “I thought I’d stop in on you both after spending a few days with my parents”

“But you came to see me early?” Adam asked.

There was a murky tone in his voice that meant that Adam was asking a question he already knew a half-answer to.

“Because there’s something on your mind?”

Again, not a question.

“I came to apologise,” Gansey heard himself say before he’d actually thought it.

Adam was shocked enough to be unable to hide it.

“Apologise? Gansey–“

“It has been on my mind. It’s been on my mind a lot. Really it’s something I should have cleared up before we left to travel but… I wasn’t brave enough then. Or at least I hadn’t worked out why I felt like I needed to apologise to you… but it came to me last month–“

“Gansey, what are you talking about?”

Adam looked offended even though Gansey wasn’t accusing him of anything.

“I realise there’s a lot I have to apologise for really, but I thought I’d at least start with this?”

“Honestly Gansey, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s something I said to you, over a year ago… before…”

He didn’t need to finish that sentence, _before_ had become synonymous for them all _. Before Adam’s eyes and hands were taken. Before the unmaking. Before he died. Before he came back._

Adam said nothing more. Gansey suspected he knew now exactly what Gansey was referring to.

It had haunted Gansey all around South America. What he had said: _Don’t break him, Adam._ And what he had thought in tandem: Adam, _ever the scientist_ , and Ronan, _with a broken heart_.

“Gansey–“

There was a time when Gansey would have never dared interrupt Adam or not let him have his peace, but things were different now and Adam would get this apology whether he liked it or not.

“I’m sorry I said it. I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t my place and I know it probably hurt you.”

“Gansey, if we’re apologising for accidentally hurting each other, we’ll be here till closing. Maybe longer.”

Gansey continued regardless, “I want you to know why I said it. When you told me he kissed you, I was surprised but… well, it wasn’t me thinking wrong of you, it was me thinking wrong of him.”

Now it was Adam’s turn to be surprised.

“He’s his own person. But I treated him as if he was my responsibility for such a long time and I just thought if things played out… badly… then it would be my fault.”

Adam nodded thoughtfully.

“He’s faced so much, I was just worried that maybe you…” he chose his next words carefully, “ _not feeling the same way_ would be that one thing that could tip him over the edge.”

Adam leaned back in his chair.

“But he’s stronger than that. I shouldn’t have thought of him as so weak. Maybe I was even jealous because he _was_ mine for so long. And as Blue helpfully told me it’s none of my business anyway, so there’s that. But I wanted to say sorry to you. I wanted you to hear me out.”

And Adam simply replied, “thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dis might get sad, sorry in advance
> 
> come talk to me about welsh kings on Tumblr @homerically


	2. april

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unedited again, apologies
> 
> and I've played it a little fast and loose with CDTH

ii

* * *

The second time Gansey visited Adam at Harvard, his heart weighed heavy. Again, he hadn’t called ahead.

It was the 26th April, Gansey had booked and boarded a flight from Uruguay not even 24 hours ago. He had packed nothing and said a quick goodbye to Blue and Henry at the gate. They had debated coming with him but Gansey suggested that depending on the mood after he gave his news, they could always follow him out a few days later. It needed to be him.

It had begun with a call to Blue from Maura and it had ended with him knocking on the willowy dorm door in Thayer which he had worked out was Adam’s.

But it wasn’t Adam that opened the door. It was a broad, quirkily-dressed boy with a tuff of hair sticking at an awkward angle.

“You must be Fletcher?”

The boy looked down at himself as if to check.

“Yes. Can I–?”

“I need to speak to Adam.”

The boy sighed as if strangers appearing at the door was commonplace, “appointments are made through Gillian. $20 for standard tarot and–“

Gansey shook his head violently, “no, no, I’m not… I’m someone from home. I need to speak to him now, it’s important.”

Fletcher gripped the door, hesitantly, edging it closed slightly.

“Look I don’t know––“

“My name is Gansey, surely he’s shown you a picture or–?”

Fletcher’s eyes lit up and Gansey sagged in relief.

“Shouldn’t you be in South America?”

“Yes. Yes, I should but I really need to speak to him.

“Come in, you can wait here. He finishes class in forty minutes.”

That’s where Adam found him, a friend from a long way away perched apprehensively on the edge of his dorm bed making polite small talk with his roommate.

Gansey watched and timed that it took him precisely thirty seconds for Adam to conclude that Gansey’s appearance was no happy reunion.

“What’s happened?”

Gansey peered to Fletcher. Adam followed his gaze. Fletcher, eyes-wide, sat curiously watching the display.

“Fletcher… do you mind? Ten minutes?”

“We’re out of chips anyway.”

He headed for the door, throwing a “no crabs” over his shoulder as he went.

Adam settled in a chair opposite to him.

“I thought you were coming in two weeks? Meeting us at the Barns?”

Gansey said nothing. He knew Adam was merely working it out in his head.

“But you’ve come early? You’ve got a reason. Something to say. Something you couldn’t say around Ronan.”

Gansey looked him in the eye and levelled with him wordlessly. Adam took in a breath so shakily; Gansey was worried he might faint.

“Who?” Was all he asked.

Gansey couldn’t bring himself to answer.

“It’s the day after St Marks. Blue’s not answering my texts. You told them not to, right? Until you got here? Because Maura saw someone.”

“I wanted to come to you first.”

“Gansey,” Adam’s voice was strained, “who was it?”

“Declan.”

* * *

Gansey took Adam’s anger in sympathetically. He had guessed on the plane over that it was a possible reaction.

“I don’t like keeping secrets from him. I feel like we’ve gone behind his back,” Adam said as he paced.

“Then, let’s tell him.”

Adam threw him a disdainful look appropriately suggesting the situation was more complicated than that.

Gansey knew he was right though, the next step was to tell him. Or at least Declan, who Gansey suspected would take it better than Ronan would.

* * *

Adam’s exams started the following week, but this wouldn’t be the first time he’d balanced his education and found-family emergencies so he’d told Gansey he’d take a long weekend at the Barns.

Gansey didn’t fancy clinging to Adam’s back as they hurtled towards Henrietta on his motorbike so it was decided Adam would get a head start right away and Gansey would fly in the following day.

One awkward sleepover with Adam’s airy roommate and uncomfortable plane ride later, Gansey arrived at Washington Duelles airport and then drove a rental all the way to the Barns.

It had been a long time since he’d been here. Long enough that just even the thought of walking through the door had made Gansey misty-eyed during the drive.

It was hard to see it so changed also. As he pulled in and parked on the drive, next to Declan’s Volvo, he noticed the extra wing that had been fashioned onto the house as if it had always been there. He knew that it had been to house the extra Barns residents, Ronan had told him Hennessy and Jordan had moved in, at least until whoever was hunting the dreamers cooled off.

The door was cracked open so he made his way into the entranceway. He found them all in the living room, all stood in various parts of the room like in some sort of war-council.

Ronan. Adam. Opal. Matthew. And two identically-looking but posturally-different girls that he quickly assumed would be Hennessy and Jordan.

It felt as if he’d just walked into an odd sanctuary for parentless teenagers.

Ronan hugged him. Surprising. From over his shoulder, Gansey saw Matthew wipe his eyes. One of the girls, Jordan maybe, sank into a chair and put her head in her hands. Adam must have told them already.

“Ronan I–“ he started.

“It’s okay. Later.”

Gansey was chiefly surprised at how well he seemed to be. He expected a version of Ronan post-Niall – screaming and destructive – or a Ronan post-Aurora – mute and distant. But he found someone instead with a scary determined look in his eye. _Oh_ , Gansey thought, _he thinks he can prevent it_.

From upstairs he heard an almighty bang, no one but himself reacted.

The girl, she must be Jordan, got up from where she was slumped in his chair.

“I’ll go check on him.”

She made her way towards the stairs.

Gansey looked to Adam, but he simply shrugged.

Despite what Gansey had thought, it turns out Declan was not taking it well.

* * *

Dinner was a quiet and sombre affair. Just whispers of _can you pass the beans_ or _how was the drive_?

Declan remained locked away upstairs, making the occasional noise of destruction and scream of anger. Hennessy didn’t join them either, Gansey sensed she didn’t like him and that she was the type of person who wouldn't share a table with someone she didn’t like. She sat in the next room with her headphones blaring instead. Adam quietly assured him that she just takes a while to trust.

Jordan tried to make an effort with him although he could tell her mind was elsewhere.

“You’ve been to England then?”

“Yes. I’ve got a good friend there, perhaps you know him.”

She chuckled, “England is not that small, mate.”

They were a strange pair – the twins that weren’t twins. If Hennessy was Ronan before, Jordan was Ronan after.

* * *

By midnight, it was just Adam, Ronan and Gansey left awake. They stood on the porch together, all nursing beers they were still too young to be drinking.

“Cabeswater saved you. Lindenmere can save him,” Ronan said casually.

Adam and Gansey didn’t say anything but they were thinking the same thing. But neither one of them was brave enough to tell him the truth, not yet.

* * *

Gansey woke early. The sun was barely up but he left Niall and Aurora’s room and padded down to the kitchen. He was too quiet for his own good though and he stumbled into a scene that he knew he shouldn’t have been privy too.

Declan with his hands gripping the edge of the counter and Jordan behind him with her hands snaked tightly around his waist.

They both looked up and caught him watching.

The coffee-machine on the opposite counter beeped. Jordan let go of Declan and poured three mugs full, handing one to Gansey before taking her own outside.

Declan turned to face him, eyes red and puffy. Gansey realised he knew nothing about Declan at all. 

He passes Declan’s coffee to him and lent on the counter. As someone who had also appeared as a ghost on the ley line, Gansey wondered if he offered any comfort.

“They saw you as well didn’t they… on St Mark’s?” Declan asked, almost reading Gansey’s mind.

Gansey nodded, grimly. 

Declan sighed. Gansey had never seen a man so broken in half. Not even Adam and Ronan at their worst had come to this.

“Did my brother know you were going to die?”

“No. The others did, but not him. Not until the end.”

“Did you know he’s not even my full brother? Half.”

Gansey hadn’t known this. He didn’t need to guess what half though.

“All three of us Lynch brothers, not really brothers at all.”

“That doesn’t matter. You are brothers. You choose to be.”

“Then, I suppose you’re as much his brother as I am.”

“Not in the same way.”

“Will you look after him?”

Gansey clenched his mug, “Declan–“

“Will you look after him, Gansey?”

Gansey looked him firmly in the eye. He'd always felt aligned with Declan, he'd reckoned they wanted the same thing: Ronan safe. Ronan through school. But now he felt connected in more ways than one. Gansey had imagined a future without himself in it. He'd known he was going to die. But if he'd have had one wish then. If Glendower had given him that. He wouldn't have asked for his life. He would have asked for his friends to be safe instead. Gansey had no doubt Declan would do the same.

And Gansey knew that that was why Declan Lynch was going to die. For his brothers.

“Of course,” Gansey replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i couldn't remember the ley line St Marks rules – but I think it's if you're born in Henrietta, it's unlikely Declan was (I think) but I beg you to suspend your disbelief  
> please and thank you


	3. july

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a lot happens in three months

This time, Gansey called ahead.

Their trip had come to a close. Henry and Blue both had college places starting in the fall. Blue on a full ride to NYU and Henry just down the road at Columbia. And Gansey supposed he’d have to settle down into further education eventually. It was the _Richard_ thing to do.

Maybe somewhere in England. In the last conversation they’d had, Jordan had said he’d be welcome in her country anytime. Maybe Wales. But maybe not.

Adam met them at the airport, they were stopping over on their way back to Henrietta. A very-much out of the way detour but all three of them had learned to prefer the scenic route.

Blue launched herself at Adam and he stumbled backwards. Over Blue’s shoulder he raised a fist to bump against Gansey and Henry’s.

“I’m surprised you’ve left the car.”

Gansey frowned at him, he was sure Adam would know.

“You haven’t talked to him, have you? Not since–“

“Not for lack of trying,” Adam interrupted.

“The car stopped working,” Blue explained, “the same time Ronan’s dreaming did. It’s enjoying the view on a Brazilian mountain right about now.”

Adam’s expression was complicated, half-angry, half-distressed. He looked down at his hands and rubbed them together. Gansey noticed they were chapped and rough, liked they’d been when they were seventeen.

“You really haven’t spoken to him?” Gansey asked again.

Adam’s eyes flared with something cruel but whatever biting remark he’d thought of stayed locked behind his gritted teeth.

“Come on. Long journey. Don’t we have a dorm to move you out of?” Henry jumped in.

If Gansey had ever needed to raise a white flag, now was the moment.

* * *

They all bundled into Adam’s car and headed for Thayer. As part of their scenic adventure, they had committed to helping Adam move to off-campus accommodation.

There were very minimal boxes of Adam’s to transport but Gansey quickly realised that moving him also meant moving the very tight Harvard social group around him – _The Crying Club_. And they all had considerably more stuff to shift.

So that’s how he found himself stood in the new kitchen in a heated discussion with Benjy over which cupboard was best suited for glassware.

Gansey wasn’t often caught in heated discussions. Smooth charm or quiet introversion were his more natural state of beings. Moments of Gansey anger were rarely directed at strangers but Benjy had particularly questionably kitchen organisational opinions.

“Over the stove? How does that make any sense?”

“Didn’t you have a fridge in your bathroom?”

Gansey gave up not long after that.

He headed upstairs to Adam’s room with his last tiny box tucked under his arm.

“How is he doing? You speak to him don’t you?”

Adam’s voice was quiet. Gansey stopped at the top of the stairs to listen.

“Briefly. But yes.” Blue replied.

Gansey could hear the sounds of exertion as they made the bed. He remained hovering, not wanting to interrupt.

“Adam, I don’t understand how it happened? I thought––“

“So did I. But he stopped calling. And then he stopped texting. And then he just stopped. I even visited the Barns, although I’m pretty sure the last time he was there was the wake. Opal seems to be in charge now.”

“Doesn’t sound like you. To give up so easily.”

“I didn’t give up, Blue. I thought maybe he just wanted a bit of space at first, but he just kept pushing and pushing. I can’t–– I don’t–– what am I meant to do? When his mom… it was different then, but he didn’t do this. I don’t even know where he is.”

“You’ve not been… scyring?”

“Enough to know he’s safe. But not where he is.”

“I didn’t even think he liked Declan… I mean, it’s Declan.”

There was a long gap of silence.

“Sorry I just––“ Blue was scrambling.

“You’ve been gone a long time... But not long enough to think that that’s an okay thing to say.”

“I didn’t mean––”

“Not everyone’s lucky enough to have someone we love jump right back up again after they die.”

Gansey’s body thrummed at the memory. He often forgot he’d been the only one of the group to not really experience the trauma of him being dead for ten minutes because, well… he’d been dead for most of it.

“That was different.”

“Not for Ronan,” Adam’s voice turned to a snarl.

Gansey heard the familiar sounds of Blue huffing and storming out. She marched out of the room and came barrelling into him.

Gansey steadied her by gripping her shoulders. Holding her anger.

“I want to go back home. Now,” she said, brushing herself off.

“Tomorrow. Blue, he needs–”

“I know. I know.”

* * *

After distracting Blue and Henry with Great Glassware Debate of 2020, Gansey made his way upstairs to catch Adam alone.

He was perched on the edge of his bed with a small little tub in his hands labelled _Manibus_. He snuck it back in his pocket as Gansey knocked.

“You know, fighting with her has felt like the closest I’ve been to him since the funeral.”

Gansey sat down next to him, “I’ll find him. He can’t avoid me forever.”

“You haven’t spoken to him either?”

Gansey shook his head, “I thought it was just me. God, he even spoke to Henry once. But never me.”

“I speak to Matthew. Almost every day now. But not about Ronan.”

“Oh yeah? How’s he doing?”

“Getting better, slowly. He seems different now that’s he’s not a dream. I don’t know why. Jordan didn’t change at all.”

Gansey loved a puzzle, “perhaps because Jordan was a copy? And Matthew was an original? And when Ronan sacrificed his dreaming, but woke Matthew up, he was more of a blank canvas?”

Adam rubbed his eyes, “maybe.”

He didn’t sound like he thought Gansey’s idea was right, but he probably didn’t want another fight.

“We’ll find him, Adam.”

“What if we don’t? What if this time he’s lost too much? His parents. Noah. Declan. Hennessy.”

Gansey had no soothing answer. He himself had thought the same thing.

They sat together a little longer. 

The next morning, Gansey bought himself a new journal from the 7/11 around the corner from Adam's new place. It had butterflies on but it would do.

He'd spent years looking for a dead welsh king all across the world. Surely it wouldn't take him long to find his best friend. He wrote on Page One all the possible places Ronan could be, and started there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hellloooo, it's been a while, but I'm back
> 
> I've been preoccupied with A LOT of mask making and am enjoying selling them
> 
> I love Declan Lynch but let's be honest he is a GONER, maggie pls don't do this to me
> 
> come talk to me about welsh kings and dreamer trilogy theories on Tumblr @homerically

**Author's Note:**

> dis might get sad, sorry in advance
> 
> come talk to me about welsh kings on Tumblr @homerically
> 
> (sorry about the clear spoilers in the fic description, it's just really the main heart of this fic but I needed a kind of intro chapter)


End file.
